eero Home WiFi System Beacon

My Old Man Someone Who Cares About Product Quality said The ugly truth about eero from someone with corporate network experience....

I have tried so hard to like eero but there are serious flaws with the product and support. My first impression was outstanding, with nicely packaged products and a clean user interface. However, it's been all downhill from there. I tried eero with a large installation and devices kept failing. They would have either intermittent failures or permanent failures. I'm knowledgeable with networking and these were real issues. Support wouldn't respond to emails for well over a week! I called and they answered the phone, which was good, but they were rude and only told me to wait for a response to my email ticket since that had already been started. So I am supposed to just wait forever for email replies that never come? I think they know they have problems with their firmware and they are struggling behind the scenes to figure things out. Another problem is that there is no log for me to review and I also have no control over if/when any firmware updates will occur. For all I know, it will update in the middle of something important. It's a very, very closed system where the manufacturer can see everything going on in my network (which is a little eery - not eero), but I cannot. Between that, the constant product failures, and the terrible support, eero is huge disappointment. At the very least, don't buy this product until the manufacturer lets you have access to your own error log and choose if/when you want firmware updates to occur so it won't go offline for 15 minutes for an update in the middle of your Superbowl party. These guys still think they own the devices that we have purchased and they should have full control over the data, the logs, the updates, etc.; it's a big miss, technically and ethically.

My friend A.A.S experience Eero VS Orbi, Velop, Amplifi HD and Google Wifi - Eero still on top!.

This is long updated review on 6 different wifi systems and why we picked and are still using Eero. We were very happy with the 1st Gen Eero system and just upgraded to 2nd Gen with 2 beacons and wanted to share our experience to end wifi issues/dead spots in our home. This is our overall experience and perhaps it will help you with your decision.

WIFI SYSTEMS PURCHASED:
Orbi, Velop, Amplifi HD, Google Wifi, 1st Gen Eero and 2nd Gen Eero with 2 beacons

LOCATION:
3000Sq Ft Townhome with at least 45 devices connected at any time. 3D printers, Sonos players in every room and outdoors, Phillips Hue, Amazon Dots, Ooma, Smart TV’s, IOS/Android phones, tablets and computers, Apple Tvs, 10+ POE 4MP Security cameras, Ring/Chime devices and the list goes on. Work remotely so lots of video calls, exchanging, uploading, downloading and working on design files online. My Little Pony and a bevy of others streamed for the little one via Netflix/Hulu etc. ISP is Comcast with 200mbps down and 10mbps up. Wifi dense community of townhomes with lots of interference which affect signal penetration. This was the place where Wifi went to die!

SITUATION:
Started with Comcast router/modem then tried Comcast modem with Netgear X6, Comcast modem with Netgear X8, Arris SB6190 with Netgear X8 and Netgear extender. Signal was great close to the modem/router but the further away you moved service degraded quite rapidly in our home. Also multiple SSID were a huge pain. Enter the wave of Wifi systems. We researched different products and read reviews on multiple sites. Reviews were too close so we bought the top 6 systems for real life testing in our home.

CRITERIA:
We bought these test systems with no promotions and no promises of a good review. We established simple criteria for our testing:
1) Product design
2) System setup
3) Ethernet wired backhaul
4) Firmware updates
5) System app
6) Customer service
7) Seamless roaming
8) Throughput/signal strength
9) Conclusion
We ranked the systems from 1st to 6th under each criteria. Here are our results.

PRODUCT DESIGN:
The designs are in different directions. The Orbi is the largest with an industrial design direction. Eero is the shortest an has an Apple-lesque minimal design. The new beacons are much better designed and inconspicuous when compared tot he Amplifi beacons. The nightlight is a welcomed additional feature. The Amplifi main units has a cool techy feel to it with a main unit with a bright LCD screen but thats where the design stopped because the satellite units have a quirky magnetic design - A child magnet because my daughter was always trying to adjust them for us. Google was just simple and quite unassuming. Velop had a modern feel/look to it. We found ourselves drawn to the simple clean design of the Eeros because they blended easily with our decor. (See images) However design is so subjective that it depends on what you like.

Ranking: (1st) Eero 2nd and 1st Gen (2nd) Velop (3rd) Google (4th) Orbi (5th) Amplifi

SYSTEM SETUP:
We set them up using an iPhone 7 Plus except for the Orbi which we used an iMac. We maintained the same room/general location main/satellite units for testing. Orbi setup is through the internet and that was easy and fast and it found the satellites with no issues. Eero set up was easy via the app and it found the satellites with no issues. We had to reposition the Google, Amplifi and Velop satellites during the initial setup for the main units to “see” them - (See Customer service section). After setup we plugged ethernet cables into the Velop, Google and Eero satellites to maximize performance. Orbi and Amplifi do not have this feature. Overall the setup for each 3 unit pack took less than 10mins for Eero/Orbi and less than 30mins for the rest. The 2nd Gen Eero with the updated software have the quickest setup till date. Even better than the previous Eero. Standouts here are Orbi and Eero because set up was simple and straight forward. However the edge goes to Eero due to how simple it was to set up with the app.

Ranking: (1st) Eero 2nd and 1st Gen (2nd) Orbi (3rd) Velop (4th) Google (5th) Amplifi

ETHERNET WIRED BACKHAUL:
The best connection is a wired connection so we wanted a system with the opportunity to hard wire the satellites. Orbi and Amplifi HD don't support wired backhaul. Amplifi HD uses a portion of its bandwidth to communicate between router and satelllite. Orbi has a dedicated band for its communication. Google Wifi, Velop and Eero support ethernet backhaul so you can hardwire all the units. These systems also work wirelessly. With the 2nd Gen Eero you can only have a wired connection with the main unit. The beacons only work wirelessly. Surprisingly the 2nd Gen beacons work better than the 1st Gen - Much better.. (See throughput/Signal section)

Ranking: (1st) Eero 2nd and 1st Gen (2nd) Google (3rd)Velop. Other 2 systems do not offer ethernet backhaul

FIRMWARE UPDATES:
This is the method employed by the manufacturer to improv and add features to your wifi system. With all the systems you have to update them with the latest software out of the box. Orbi was the most difficult because We had to download the update then apply it - It did not work for us the normal way. Velop, Amplifi and Eero worked in the normal way through their respective apps. After the initial firmware update they all updated automatically. This a splendid feature and how new and improved services are added to your wifi systems. Firmware notes and descriptions are always available on the manufacturer website.

Ranking: Even across the board

SYSTEM APP:
The app is where you interact with and glean all the information about your network and devices. Orbi has an app but its basically worthless and you have to use a net based portal to really access and customize the system. Next is the Amplifi app which at the time of testing wasn't so great. Google, Velop and Eero have the most user friendly apps. You can access your system remotely to control all available features. We are not complex users so advanced features like port forwarding etc etc were not a huge selling point to us. Features we looked for in the app were quality of service, devices connections, which nodes were connected to what device, signal strength to each device, guest access, network diagnosis, number of devices connected (easy way to see what device is actually on your network and what device should not be on your network), pausing internet/blocking devices, built in speed tests, device priority setting and device seamless roaming from node to node. With all this in mind Eero App was the winner hands down. The app was well laid out, information was easily visible and accessible and that made it a joy to use

Ranking: (1st) Eero (2nd) Google (3rd)Velop (4th) Amplifi (5th) Orbi

CUSTOMER SERVICE:
With new tech there is always the possibility of issues so going in we knew we might have to deal with potential issues and were ready. We had to spend a couple of hours with each companies customer service for different issues even after the set up process went well. Velop and Orbi customer service appears to be offshore and we had a difficult time explaining and understanding what they were saying and it sounded like they were reading from scripts. Amplifi customer service was through chats and that really did not help much. Google Wifi customer was decent and they are in the US. We were unable to improve the performance in our home and they were sold out so we could not get a replacement. Eero service was and is still light years ahead of the others and they are in the US. We were able to speak with, understand and formulate a plan for our specific situation. It did not feel as if they were reading from scripts but more trying to understand our issue, troubleshoot and resolve. They followed up with calls and emails to make sure our issues were addressed. We felt that if we had any issues in the future we knew who to call. With the 2nd Gen we did not need to contact customer service as everything went smoothly.

Ranking: (1st) Eero (2nd) Google (3rd)Amplifi (4th) Orbi (5th) Velop

SEAMLESS ROAMING:
A major selling point of Wifi systems is seamless roaming/handover between nodes. Basically as you move through your home/office the systems connects your device to the node that is closest or the one that gives it the best signal. Its actually fun to watch the switch offer through the app. Theoretically Orbi, Amplifi and Velop state that your devices switch between nodes for best service but offer no way to view the transitions. No way for you to see what node you a device is connected to at any time. This is another area where Google and Eero outshine the competition. Both apps tell you which node your device is connected to. However Eero goes a few steps further and shows you what band is being used, signal strength of connected node and activity levels. As the signal strength weakens (goes from 5 green bars to 1 red bar) you can watch as the devices switches to the next node. Eero unleashed new software and it shines with the 2nd Gen. The switches are quicker and smoother. It was fun watching as Eero switched nodes as we moved from room to room. We actually turned that into a game to see which node would step up and take over.

Ranking: (1st) Eero 2nd Gen (2nd) Eero 1st Gen (3rd) Google. Other 3 systems did not offer the ability to monitor

THROUGHPUT/SIGNAL STRENGTH:
With our old units we had lots of inconsistent signals and loss of speed. We pay for 200 down and 10 up and old systems never even got close. All 5 systems tested improved upon our situation. From last to first we would rank them as follows. 5) Google Wifi never gave us more than 50% of upload speeds. 4) Amplifi gave us about the same as Google wifi. 3) Velop was not consistent and varied between 50% and 96%. 2) Orbi was also inconsistent and varied between 70% and 100%. 1) Eero provided 100-120% consistently however the new system with the beacons provided 110 - 135% consistently. Even though we got signal improvements with all the units the differentiator was “consistency of signal, speed and connection”. Hands down best performer were both Eero systems. We got consistent speeds at each node and at all corners of our home. The Eero system with the beacons connected slightly faster. Unlike Orbi and Velop the Eero systems did not cut in and out or have lapses of slow speed. They were also consistently faster than all the other units.

Ranking: (1st) Eero 2nd and 1st Gen (2nd) Orbi (3rd) Velop (4th) Amplifi (5th) Google

EERO VS EERO
The 2nd Gen was slightly faster, smoother, quicker to set up. However the main difference here is ethernet ports. The first generation 3 pack has a total of 6 ports - 2 on each unit. The newer system has just 2 ports on the main unit and no ports on the beacons. If you need ports at ever Eero location the new version with beacons will not work for you. If most of your devices are wired and you need a stronger consistent Wifi signal then the newer units perform better than the first and will be great. The Eero pro with 3 units would be the best of both worlds and we have that on order and will update the review when we get that. We switched from the 1st Gen to the 2nd Gen because we have most of our devices wired and just needed a strong wifi system. The new system with the beacons are much stronger than the old 3 pack system. In our home the beacon system is so strong that we won't need to add more whereas we added extra units of the 1st generation

IMAGES:
We have switched from using our 5 1st Gen to 3 2nd Gen Eeros (Eero and 2 beacons). We included images of our Eero locations (Gen 1 and 2) as well as size compared icon for the beacons and the night light feature. We also included images showing the differences between the 1st and 2nd Gen main units. 2nd Gen has a physical reset button and now charges with USB C. The beacons once plugged in are basically inconspicuous. We now only use 1 main unit and 2 beacons. Awesome!

CONCLUSION:
For our home we ended up with an Eero system because it won in all the categories that mattered to us. We loved the minimal design, easy set up, wired ethernet backhaul, fluid app, seamless roaming and customer service Eero provided. In real life use in our home Eero (1st or 2nd) just worked with no complications. This is our Eero experience in our setting. Now all of us can do what ever we want with wifi anywhere in and outside our home. We hope the review will help you and we will help with questions you may have. Eero gets a full recommendation from us. Hands down the best overall system out there by far. Great job Eero!!

My Buddy Robert Harbick Talk Actually as good as they say!.

Ok, I will admit that I bought these with the full intention of probably having to send them back. Through the years I have tried several different systems to put good wireless throughout our 3-story home. I've used several different routers, and have had an Apple AirPort Extreme and two Airport Express' running (which still provide the backbone in the house for our less needy machine system). But nothing I did could get a good signal into the master bedroom in the back of the house, especially with the main router being in the home office upstairs on the other side of the house. My better half constantly let me know I was a poor excuse of a Network Engineer when she wasn't even able to watch the latest Korean drama in peace while laying in bed.
Unpacking - simple and clean. Download and install the app. on your smart phone before you start doing anything as it walks you through the install (and does an incredibly simple and great job of it). Install and setup of the main hub took me all of about 5 minutes with most of that time spent finding an extension cord. As I was replacing an existing wireless setup once I had the system up and running all my iPads and such connected automatically as I had used the same SSID and password. Setting up the Beacons took about 30 minutes, with most the time taken in selecting location so I would have a good mesh of the signal. Again, the App. walks you through every step, and lets you know if you have selected a good spot or if you might want to move a beacon to a different location for a better mesh. The App. is a thing of beauty, with all the information you need right at your fingertips. The stuff you usually want to customize (like the names of the Beacons) are customizable. Once I had all the Beacons set up I went through the house trying to find a weak spot or dead spot. Couldn't find one - not one! Guess I won't be sending this stuff back after all. Sure put a smile on my better half's face! Oh, and is this thing FAST!!!

Also, a note about Apple products. I have read the other reviews that say the eero doesn’t work well with Apple products. I don’t know why they are having problems. My system has been up and running for about two months now with zero problems. And it stays connect rock solid to all manner of devices (about 26 I believe) including two iPads, two iPhones, an iMac, a MacBook Pro, a Smart Thermostat, a couple Apple TV’s, a Ring Smart Doorbell and three Ring remote doorbells. Oh, and two of them do double duty as night lights. And the system has updated itself twice that I know of (I would only know as it would tell me after the fact).

My Fellow yliebermann said Their app has in-app purchases!.

Maybe you're not the kind of person who gets annoyed at companies repeatedly trying to upsell you onto their crappy subscription Adblocker for ten bucks a month when you open their app. You'll have a better time with Eero than I do.

My Fellow Steve Segal say I've owned every mesh router under the sun. This is it. FINALLY..

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your WiFi. After years of going through WiFi routers I have FINALLY found a mesh network that works in this haunted house.. I live in an all brick house. 4000 sq feet. 2 stories. This has been a daunting task for as long as I have lived here for about 5 years. Constantly plagued with wifi problems. No matter what. I've gone through a stack of 10 different wifi dongle/adapters over the years.

I have a router graveyard in my basement of very high end routers (they all still work, just not in this house lol). Including Netgear Orbis (2 router mesh), Linksys Velop (3 router mesh), ASUS RT-AC3200, Apple Airport Extreme, ASUS RT-N66U, Securifi Almond, TP-Link AC3200 Archer.

Orbis would drop out. It couldn't even get a stable connection 20 feet away. The Velop system, similar issues. You'd think with 3 Meshed network, it would work better than the 2 Orbis. Nope. Orbis has no flexibility whatsoever. The channel selection process was horrific. Another great thing about this, the size! It's so small! It's by far the best performance I've ever measured. Also, the setup is the EASIEST I have EVER done. Typically, when Netgear or Linksys say go download their App - its so easy, it really never is. There's always some issue.

Eero's, is a company that is thinking outside the box. They know the problems that plague users today. This new generation of eeros, absolutely demolishes all previous mesh networking competetion - utterly and completely. I'm so extremely happy. I used to have to run a 150+ foot Ethernet cable, all the way from upstairs to downstairs. Across the kitchen, down the stairswell, into a guest room. It was awful. No longer!

For 5 years, my wife would not stop talking about that cable. We're renewing our wedding vows tonight.

My Buddy Franklin said FALSE ADVERSING.

A slick setup, easy to install, made me think I made a great purchase off the recommendation of The Wirecutter.

But it has a fatal flaw that will have you screaming and wanting to throw all these bits on the TRASH BIN: constantly your devices will latch on to the farthest pod you have in the system and lock up/not have internet access. In frustration I bought a fourth pod to put in my very bedroom. And yes, if my phone or laptop happens to latch on to that one when I’m in the room it works great. But 90% of the time IT DOES NOT and instead insists on going two pods over and latching on to the mesh pod one floor down by the exit door.

What good is the system of getting pods close to you, if EERO has not figured out how to make the devices latch onto closer pods? You can’t even override using the app, which is another software fail.

I’m returning the whole damn useless thing

My Buddy Larry T. tell us ***IPHONE USERS, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS SYSTEM***.

Here is my experience with Eero Pro. I was extremely excited when the Pro came out as I was ready to upgrade my WiFi at the house, so I took the plunge for $500. It took me about 15 mins to hook up the system, very easy. All the dead spots around the house now showed full bars or almost full. So far so good.

Now for the problems: As I walked from room to room, my iphone (7 plus) or ipad consistently dropped connection even though I showed full bars. The “mesh” network didn’t seem to be working as I moved from Eero to Eero. There were some rooms when I didn’t even walk around, the connection would drop (again, I am showing full bars on my phone). I NEVER had dropped connections with full bars showing with my old $100 router, EVER. I had dead spots in the house, but that was expected.

I spoke to Support on the phone and via email several times. First they had me make a “reservation”. That didn’t work. They had me move the Eeros to different areas of the house, that didn’t work. Finally after struggling with the system for weeks, they admitted there was a software problem on their end specifically for iphones. They convinced me to not dump the system yet, as there was a fix on the way shortly. Finally they pushed a beta version of the updated software to my system…..of course, it did NOT fix the problem. That was the end of my Eero experience as I couldn’t deal with dropped connections anymore.

I went ahead and purchased the Linksys AC5400 which is about $150 LESS than the Eero.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017NT8Q24/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Installed the router in 5 mins, less time then the Eero. Coverage in my house is BETTER and I have had ZERO dropped connections. Nothing else on my network has changed, except for the router. **This is clear evidence that the eero is a piece of garbage.**

I contacted Eero to let them know I tried everything they asked me to and was patient like they told me to be. I waited for the Beta software release which they thought would fix the dropped connections. So I asked Eero for a refund on my system since I was past the 30 days return policy on Amazon. They said there was nothing they can do to help me. So I am now stuck with a $500 useless router.

I do NOT recommend the Eero Pro system.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

Here is an email from Eero ADMITTING to me they have a software problem:

(eero Customer Support)
Sep 18, 5:06 PM PDT
Hi Larry,We sincerely appreciate your patience dealing with certain connected devices falling offline, and our engineering teams have been actively working to fix this issue as fast as possible. As of today, our newest build of firmware - eeroOS 3.4.0 - is designed specifically to fix certain behavior that occurs with specific connected devices and we'd like to proactively update your network. Please know that we've not tested this build as thoroughly as previous releases: this is a special exception to our quality assurance process that we're optionally sending so that you can get some relief. If you're not up for the risk, don't worry - you'll get updated with a more validated build in the future. If you'd like to have your network updated, please reply to this email with confirmation, and we'll send the update to you as soon as possible.
xxxxx @ eero

My friend MrGadget said Still a lot better than Google and Linksys but not worth to upgrade from the old Eero to this one..

Still a lot better than Google and Linksys but not worth to upgrade from the old Eero to this one. If do don't have an Eero already and you want fast and reliable internet without spending time on setup and maintenance get this one (or a smaller bundle for a smaller house).

Eero is easy to setup (same as the older one) and is very reliable but a Mesh network is not magic, if you have an older house with chicken-wire in the walls or shielding in the floors you will still need to connect each of them to a cable. Just test it, it might work without but the good thing of Eero is that you have that option and it works perfectly, also during setup. This bundle allows all three devices to be connected to a cable, if you don't need that or have a smaller house, get the cheaper bundle. These ones don't have the USB port anymore so you cannot use it to charge your phone or Fitbit and it will never have the option to connect a hard-disk unless you buy a separate NAS.

I also have tried Google Wifi which is a bit slower and unreliable (one died after 30 days, a real hassle to get it replaced, they only want to give a refund for a third of the value for which I cannot buy another unit) and the Linksys Velop which would constantly disconnect the Ring Doorbell and then it lost settings which was extremely painful to setup from the beginning (got rid of it after two days).

Some feature requests if somebody from Eero is reading this, I will give another star if one of these features is implemented:
1) Make it possible to setup a third network besides main and guest. A special one for IOT devices, I don't want my doorbell on my internal network and also not on the guest network, just let those IOT devices connect to the internet, not each other or anything else.
2) Make it possible to prevent certain devices to access the internet, like my printer, I would like to access my printer from my main network but there is absolutely no reason for my printer to call home to HP.
3) Make it possible to limit the bandwidth of the guest network, 5 down and 2 up should be enough, if so I can be a good net-citizen and can leave off the password so anyone can use it.
4) Expose the list of MAC addresses on an API, so you can auto populate it and remotely monitor new devices.
5) Make VPN easy, partner with one of those cheap VPN providers so they can make an one step setup that will enable the Eero to have a persistent VPN connection going out (auto-re-connect), in the App you should be able to select which device(s) needs to go over that VPN channel or block it from accessing internet.

My friend A consumer say A couple of drawbacks to be aware of.

There are two disappointing things I discovered after purchasing the eero system:

(1) You cannot block devices from the internet without also blocking them from your entire home network. If you have devices you want to use on your network (e.g., security camera, printer, etc.) but you don't want them to be able to reach out to the internet for security reasons, you are out of luck. If you allow it on your network, it gets to go out over the internet. Want to limit your child's device to only listen to your home music or send things to your printer? You can't, you must allow it access to the internet as well. Most routers have a feature that allows you to block outbound internet access to specific devices. Eero does not and they have told me they have no plans to add this ability.

(2) You cannot shut off the 5gHz wifi radio. Again, every router I have used allows you to selectively turn on/off the 2.4gHz and/or 5gHz wifi signal, but eero does not. What this means is that when you are near an eero base or beacon, your device (if capable; e.g., iPhone) will jump onto the 5gHz network whether you want it to or not. So if then you walk into a nearby room and close the door, your signal will immediately drop to "very weak" due to the interference. You have to wait awhile before eero recognizes this and puts the device onto the 2.4gHz band. If you would really rather just not use 5gHz in your house, but eero doesn't give you that choice. Again, every router I have ever used allows you to turn off 5gHz if you don't want to use it. Eero has stated they have no plans to allow you to turn off one of the wifi frequencies.

Other than the above, I'm pretty happy with the coverage and signal strength in general. It's unfortunate that eero is inflexible on the above two features that are commonly present on most internet routers.

My Old Chap TK say One of the best purchases ever!!!.

We had such terrible wifi in our house from the moment it was installed. This was using the $200 gateway we have to use with our xfinity cable with phone. We have a three level house, and the router is on the top level. We had spotty internet on the main level, with so much buffering on our Firestick that I usually gave up trying to watch anything with it. We had a terrible connection on the lower level--nearly impossible. We had no wifi to speak of outside the house. About three weeks ago, we installed our Eero system. It took a few minutes. I bridged the gateway, so our wifi is solely via Eero. It's almost miraculous, seriously. We're getting download speeds in the 80's-90's throughout the entire house. I did a speedtest this morning out on the deck, and I got 89.11 down and 13,79 up. This was money well spent! I'd give 10 stars if I could. Total game changer!!!